Blessed Are They: Vatican crackdown insulting to sisters’ commitment

“Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America,” a traveling exhibit put together by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) now on display in Sacramento, Calif., shares the impressive story of Roman Catholic sisters’ influence in a developing nation.

Since 1727, about 222,000 Catholic sisters have served in the United States, often ministering to the poor, the sick, the marginalized. Since 1858, 36 orders have ministered in the Syracuse Diocese. Like their counterparts, they ran schools, hospitals, orphanages, shelters, soup kitchens and clinics. Although many were new to the country themselves, sisters responded to the needs of immigrant communities. Others, like Syracuse’s own Saint Marianne Cope, followed the call to dangerous, thankless missionary work.

The LCWR since 2009 has chronicled the sisters’ role in America in a display with stops including at the Smithsonian and Ellis Island. It’s the same group the Vatican last month chastised for failing to toe the Catholic Church’s doctrinal line.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — once known as the office of the inquisition — rebuked LCWR and called for its reform. LCWR is an umbrella group of women’s religious communities with 1,500 members representing 80 percent of the country’s 57,000 Catholic sisters.

The Vatican document gave a brief nod to the sisters’ contributions before severely rapping them on the knuckles: “The Assessment reveals serious doctrinal problems which affect many in Consecrated life.” LCWR members are accused of challenging church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” and for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.”

The Vatican has long considered American sisters too independent, but their pubic support of the Obama health care reform law likely was the final straw. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2010 opposed the law on the grounds that it would include public financing of abortion. More recently, the bishops challenged the contraceptive mandate.

Most LCWR leaders have been reluctant to comment on the Vatican crackdown, fearing further criticism from the hierarchy. But lay people have been far from silent, taking to online petitions and websites to voice their support for thousands of women who have provided love, compassion and service.

The Rev. Jim Martin, a Jesuit priest who is a popular writer and speaker, encouraged people to respond on Twitter, via #WhatSistersMeantoMe.

“My 6th grade teacher Sr. Mary Augustine taught me the meaning of teaching with love and patience. I want to be like her,” tweeted one person. “Poor Clares loved my family through my brother’s cancer and death; we wouldn’t have made it without them,” tweeted another. “Daughters of Charity cared for my Granny as a child after her mother died. They were my great-great-grandmothers,” another noted.

LCWR leaders plan to meet later this month to discuss the Vatican’s ruling. Rather than focus on the pain and betrayal at being bullied and unappreciated by the Vatican, they should instead take pride in the affection and respect so many have for them.